


Ships

by surprisinglyOK



Category: History Boys (2006), History Boys - All Media Types, History Boys - Bennett
Genre: Angst, Depression, Drabble, Extended Metaphors, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, living with mental illness, semi-poetic, sex references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-22 09:32:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12478540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/surprisinglyOK/pseuds/surprisinglyOK
Summary: David and Don navigate the choppy waters of the everyday. This is probably the angstiest thing I've written since I was 16, and the sex reference-iest since ever. Please accept this very short, semi-poetic offering.





	Ships

Some days, David is a shipwreck. He breaks and batters and creaks in the darkest depths of beyond, the wood brittle and sharp as it bends and shatters and cuts into his skin, and the metallic scent of some unknown, lost thing burns in his nostrils as he gasps for breath; his skin is slick with rusting red, and his lungs are heavy with the dark, viscous entrails of the ocean floor that lies, rough and brisk like carpet, under his splintered cheek.

Some days, Don is a lighthouse. He flashes red warnings and soft, orange glows, a beacon of both numbing panic when David is pulled too close to the rocks, dialling half-forgotten numbers and shaken but solid in cold ambulance clamminess, and of soft warmth radiating from hands and hair, lighting the path before them, ever strong and steady and stoic in his hospital chair throne.

Some days, they are storms. Don crashes and breaks in waves, thrashing like a drowning man, shouting in frustration and terror and exhaustion at David to come home, David screaming with the howling wind until his voice is hoarse and broken and Don is a storm cloud of desperate, sunken blackness; he holds him close and rocks him softly while the fat, heavy raindrops spill from eyes and cling to faces and fabric and the storm continues to lash around them.

Some days, Don is a whirlpool. He brings David in tight, keeping him centred and grounded and dizzy with sound and heat and glorious sensation; encaptured and enraptured, their bodies move together in breathless spinning and whirling, until they reach the centre of the vortex, and David is clinging on for dear life with his fingernails, trying desperately to leave half-moon marks upon the shoulders of swirling, all-encompassing water that pulses with heat in the cool, rumpled waves of bedsheets as he cries out against the taste of sweat on skin.

Some days, they are the sea. They float, calm and tranquil, the steady, reassuring lapping of waves against sand, across the sofa and television set, and they curl together in the peaceful ebb and flow of glowing light and the sounds that lovers make swimming from the screen; they rest, gentle as the waves, until they are flowing in and out of sleep and the tide pulls them to bed, drifting together like calm waters do, into dreams of gently swaying seaweed and tropical fish.

Most days, they are ships. They are vulnerable but they stubbornly remain, side-by-side, on the crests of trembling waters, in quiet companionship, a soft, silent understanding that they will weather the storms, and stay afloat.


End file.
